4 Summer Movies That Change the Face of On-Screen Heroes

The white knight. He means well—that trope of all kinds of fiction—what with his quest to rescue the fair maiden from a terrible tyrant and then make her his grateful bride. But who says she needs rescuing? And who says she wants this self-righteous, self-proclaimed savior as her mate?

The well-meaning but entitled white knight may be alive and well in plenty of places, from patronizing politicians to your average rom-com hero; but in a wide-ranging crop of recent movies, he’s being thoroughly, effectively knocked off his high horse.

Spoilers ahead.

Domhnall Gleeson and Oscar Isaac in Ex Machina.

Courtesy of A24 Films.

Though sexy sci-fi in its specifics, Ex Machina’s story of robot rebellion is, at its core, a fairy tale, complete with villainous tyrant, trapped princess, and earnest white knight. Its setting is the kingdom of tech magnate Nathan (Oscar Isaac), who lives in a remote mansion where he keeps his most top-secret creations. Among these is Ava (Alicia Vikander), an android with artificial intelligence who is confined to a room that resembles a zoo’s display pen. But her chance at freedom is introduced with Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson), an engineer meant to subject Ava to the Turing test, which will truly determine whether she is a sentient being

While Nathan views Ava and her robot sisters as nothing more than his playthings, property, and sex toys, Caleb sees past Ava’s parts (and apparent gears) to her heart. This kind-hearted young man believes he’s found his soul mate and tricks the tyrant so he might free Ava from her gilded cage, expecting they will ride off into the sunset together in a soon-to-arrive helicopter.

However, in the film’s final minutes, Caleb (and, by extension, the audience) realizes this was never his story of a noble white knight. It’s Ava’s, about a self-rescuing princess who slays her tyrant and proves, by manipulating Caleb’s white-knight expectations, that she is conscious after all.

Michael Fassbender and Kodi Smit-McPhee in Slow West.

Courtesy of A24 Films.

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A similar scenario (alpha- and beta-male brought together over a woman) is found in the sensational Western Slow West (another A24 release). Here, our white knight is naïve young aristocrat Jay (Kodi Smit-McPhee), whose quest is to recover his lost ladylove, Rose (Caren Pistorius), in the dangerous terrains of the American frontier. Described as a “jack rabbit in a den of wolves,” Jay doesn’t realize he’s laying a trail of blood to Rose’s door that’s drawing predators. Among them is bounty hunter Silas (Michael Fassbender), who promises Jay protection while plotting to kill Rose, and the absinthe-fueled Payne (Ben Mendelsohn), who trails along after them with a posse armed to the teeth to bring Rose down.

Through flashbacks we learn this is not the first time that Jay has led trouble Rose’s way. He’s actually the reason she’s wanted in the first place. But worse yet, Rose doesn’t want their reunion. She’s previously rejected Jay’s affections, to which he replied dismissively, "You don’t mean that."

A romantic but entitled young lover, Jay expects that when he comes to her rescue in the plains, he’ll win her love. Instead, he—like Caleb—dies at the hands of his would-be princess, in this case with a literal shot through the heart. Yet this white knight earns some little victory, saving Rose with his final breath by gunning down the more vicious tyrant Payne.

The West—as the film and Silas’s voice-over repeatedly remind us—was no place for Jay. His death was inevitable, and repeatedly foreshadowed. But his journey brings on a change in Silas, forcing him to see Rose not as a bounty, but as a person. It also brings together an unlikely family of a reformed outlaw, his would-be bounty, and a pair of orphans (made that way by Jay). In the end, Jay caused a long line of deaths, the body count recalled in a morbid montage. But he also helped birth a new civility on the edge of an uncivilized land—just one he’s not meant to enjoy.

Mark Ruffalo and Scarlett Johansson in Avengers: Age of Ultron.

Courtesy of Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures.

Avengers: Age of Ultron flips the script on the white knight with Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), assigning a traditionally male role to the female assassin who comes to the rescue of Bruce “Hulk” Banner (Mark Ruffalo), a character who is both tyrant and “princess.” A man divided, Bruce is at the mercy of the “big guy” when in Hulk mode, a prisoner in his own skin. The one thing that can reliably bring Bruce back is Black Widow’s “lullaby,” pulling him out of Hulk before innocent people can be hurt.

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Like so many white knights before her, she loves her “princess,” Bruce. But like Caleb and Jay, this white knight loses her happy ending by denying that princess’s right to choose. Once Bruce Banner has come to her rescue in Ultron’s keep, the could-be lovers are presented their chance to run off into the sunset, leaving all this Avengers business behind. But Black Widow rejects Bruce’s desires, pushing him off a steep precipice to unleash the Hulk. She did it to save the world, but it cost her.

In his final on-screen moments, Hulk refuses to come back to the Avengers. But rather than the rage-filled beast that Banner so fears, he is calmer, quiet, heartbroken. It seems Black Widow’s push not only severed her bond with Bruce, but also broke down a bit of that barrier between his two warring halves. Bruce/Hulk sets off to parts unknown at the end of the film, without his white knight.

Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron in Mad Max: Fury Road.

Courtesy of Warner Brothers Studios

Lastly, Mad Max: Fury Road gives audiences a premise that seems perfect for the white-knight trope, but then gleefully annihilates its sexist underpinnings. The film has its titular hero on a mission to save a band of sex slaves from the lecherous hands of their violent tyrant Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne). But writer-director George Miller removes sexuality from the situation entirely, presenting no flirting, no romance, and no suggestion at all that the captives or their actual rescuer, Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron), should swoon over Max (Tom Hardy).

This motley crew, with a pack of princesses and a pair of unusual white knights, gets the happiest ending of all of these films, perhaps because the princesses are never denied their own agency. Like the Avengers, Max and Furiosa and the wives are a team, banding together to slay Immortan Joe and take over his realm to make a new world.

All of these films make for fascinating new takes on the male-dominated genres of Western, science fiction, superhero epic, and action films. But they are also calls for a step forward, a thorough reconsideration of the gender norms that have divided us into white knights, tyrants, and princesses for centuries of storytelling. Ultimately, these roles are prisons all their own; beyond their boundaries, there is hope of something new and potentially better.

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